 Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm walking through a tunnel. I'm not entirely sure if I'm meant to be here or not. I'm in Jersey and I'm walking through the tunnel which takes you from St. Xavier to St. Helier. This is not an old railway tunnel but in today's video we are going to explore one of the old railway lines of Jersey. The reason I say I'm not sure if I'm meant to be here, there was a sign at the end it said no pedestrians but another sign said pedestrians this way and I'm not the only person walking through as a man can talk to me so thank you so as you can see other people do walk through here and I just thought it was being interesting to start to the video so as I said this was not an old railway it's purely a road tunnel under the fort that seemed a quick way into the city centre. What we're going to do we're going to go and look for the old railway station we're going to take a bus along the first section of the old railway because it's basically the same as the road and then we're going to walk the extension which I'm quite excited about so we're just coming out into the sunshine at the end of the tunnel. They say there was light at the end of the tunnel but there's quite a lot of light already in this tunnel and it's a very hot day so I'm going to hopefully I'm thinking it'll be a bit sheltered so it's pretty quite a good place to go to explore the old railway. Yes you won't look it says no entry for pedestrians unless it's a one way so when you're going that way it's best to walk on that side perhaps that's what it is. Anyway that was the tunnel I'm going to continue now to find the old railway station. Well that's the fort behind us which we've walked through the tunnel underneath this is the centre of St Helia and there's the old railway station it's not actually the original railway station building on the site the railway for a fairly short lived railway has had quite an interesting history the first rails were laid or it first opened as a railway in 1870 but then by 1874 the original railway company was bankrupt but it continued to run until 1883 and this was a standard gauge line it ran from here along the coast to St Auburn. My plan is we're going to do that section on the bus because basically the road runs the exact route it's from St Auburn the extension that's the bit we're going to walk because what happened was in 1883 the company was taken over and they began to rebuild the railway and they rebuilt it to a narrow gauge of three foot six inches so this is the station here like I said it's not the original you have a look here there's a little plaque telling you about the that's the old I'll look the old jersey railway company so that's good to see right there let's go inside it's quite hot and sunny it's around there is a bus station just before we go inside actually the funny thing is there is a train of a thought there they put a train a road train which um you know so you can actually get a train here just not a train on the rails so in my books they've got trains on really trains but looking at this big picture on the wall here you can see that's the station this is probably taken from on the fort the bus station is just down there so that's where you can get a bus the railway run all sea front there and that's what we're going to do on the bus when we get to St Auburn we'll have a look at the old railway station there and from there we can continue up the old track so it's quite pleasant in here there's various restaurants and everything where the train wants to turn it is I'm going to go and find a bus now and we're going to travel around the bay so I got off the bus not quite halfway between St Helier and St Auburn at Millbrook because the old station is still here it's a cafe so that's the old railway station at Millbrook there's even an image a painting of a locomotive says Millbrook so there you have it that is the old railway station so you can imagine trains one stopping here the railway would have continued all the way right around over to St Auburn over there that's where we're going and that's where the extension was where the line turned in land away from the sea just looking across here while we're here and get quite a good view here's Elizabeth Castle out in the sea and you can see the chimney of La Colette power station I don't remember much from my last visit to Jersey because it was in 1990 but one thing I remember is being at an air show on this beach and I got stung by a rosp right here in the eye and I do remember that bit and the sound of aircraft so I'm going to find another bus and make my way to St Auburn so here we are in St Auburn I got back on the bus came round to here we've come right round the bay so we started off over there and just see La Colette power station and the fort which we came through the tunnel under so the railway imagine it would have come all the way around here now this point is a fairly interesting section it was actually a form of junction here because as I said the railway originally only went to St Auburn Stanley gauge line when they relayed it to narrow gauge and built an extension what happened was the St Auburn terminus was directly in front the station building is still there we'll see that in a minute but the line turned that way extension now to have used the old terminus just simply didn't work there was a building in front of the buffer stops so what happened a new platform had to be built over here so you effectively have the terminal platforms there there was an overall roof just past where that grass is that was the terminus and then the junction would effectively come off here there's been a curve platform going round here and the line took a very sharp sweeping curve and began a relentless climb up the hill which we're going to do so from all along here the line has effectively been a footpath as I said I came on the bus partly to save time and just because we can sort of see everything but now we can't use the bus I will come back on the bus when I finish but on the road but you kind of can't quite use a bus in the same way so when we get to here the line would have taken a curve round there we're about to see the old railway station so the platforms would have restarted about where this car park is and then very soon we should see the station building so you have a look there that is the old station building we'll see it very closely in a moment we'll see the front so then here is where the unusual platform 3 would have been on this sharp curve and you'll see how the railway extension would have travelled right round in front of the station building which was quite unusual so yeah the overall roof would have extended out there and then here looking a bit similar to what we saw over at St Helier we have an original station building whilst at original we have a station building as I said the line has had a few changes so having a look there that is the old station and it is so that's the that would have been the ticket office quite an Italian eight looking building yeah that's your old ticket office in there quite a nice view when you'd have got off one of those trains the St Oven Harbour to see the tide's right out you see itself it's about half a mile away to the tide so far out so imagine looking at a station and having a narrow steam train coming around here and then it would have not quite crossed the road but began its relentless climb so the steam train would have um yeah there we go that's the old good view of the old railway station the steam train would have come around here and gone up here up out of the town on this climb they did talk a few years ago of rebuilding this section to two foot gauge and borrowing a steam motor from the I think it was the Bala Lake really that's the bus route I came on the bus to the airport so I used that route 15 to get me here because it's not much regular we'll talk more about reopening and that but just imagine whoever you've actually if it happened you'd have got on the train here I'm not sure but we're now this thing's you know slightly steep for a road certainly this would have been steep for a railway as we leave the town centre behind and begin the walk so the walk itself officially begins when we get past this car right here the other interesting thing is that the Germans obviously took over jersey I'll talk more about that soon oh no let's have a look look this is so footpath goes that way look the railway went this way through a tunnel but unfortunately the tunnel looks to be closed off I reckon then the Germans built this this big concrete wall it looks um they did reuse some of the railways here so that is the old tunnel so we're actually going to go around the outside it's been so exciting to have walked through so I've got to find my way now to the other end of this tunnel and I found the other end of the tunnel the path runs basically the other side of the rock so you can see how they've blasted this through solid rocks show me can't walk through it I'm not the title is useful look at that it's like a a hole there in the rocks looks like it is used for something but that'd be a really cool part of the walk so what happened was the path came around here so we're following the track bed now it's um it's quite steep gradient it's about 130 as I said we are climbing from basically from sea level up and it was in the climb for one and a half miles all the way up to the summit which we shall see we'll look for a few other stations on the way my plan is to get all the way to the other end of the line so I've continued climbing out St. Obann one interesting thing with Jersey is you get quite a few French sounding names have a look at that that to me is very French I know what's Shemin I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that correctly I'm probably not but I know that means railway better so this is the old railway and it's the road so the railway and the road came quite close here you can have the way because there's a car there possibly was a level crossing here because we just saw a car drove across we're going to continue up here between the no through road sign and the actual road itself so I'm going to follow the railway on and see what else we can find I'm continuing to enjoy walking along the railway through it's rather shady section the road is just there the road's gradually climbing higher above us so I expect there'll be a bridge or a tunnel at some point I'm hoping we'll find more tunnels I don't know too much about this I am really discovering this as I go which so this is me exploring and showing it to you taking you with me it's always like in I enjoy any old railway walk I always find them fascinating this one really is a bit different because we're not talking of you know a line in Britain a branch line or a former through route that was closed by Beeching in the 1960s we're talking something that closed a lot earlier what did I just say about bridge or a tunnel have a look at that there is so let's like the road take a bit of a hairpin bend and goes over us in like that so we're going to walk under this bridge and you can still see how obvious it is on camera but we are climbing approximately one in 30 one in 40 we're climbing there and we're going to be climbing for next mile and a quarter or so so on this railway line the trains you may be wondering what the trains look like well I went this morning I went to the pallet steam motor and general museum but I've got a few steam locos industrial steam locos none of which actually have anything to do with this line but there is a model or a miniature size model of one of the locomotives have a look at that now so you can see I know unfortunately the reflection on the glass made it not the most easiest thing to take pictures of but that gave you an idea of what the locomotives wouldn't look like that's a really nice view of that bridge now behind us so they would have worked the line pulling a few carriages there were also some steam rail motors to my knowledge there were no diesel locos they were built by various different companies remember the line the first section line was really standard gauge so a locomotives built by dobs up in up in Scotland and there were locomotives built by sharp Stuart interestingly one of the locomotives that worked up here does still survive well a few of the nameplates can be seen in the National Rail Museum in York but one of the locomotives that work this line actually does survive but it's in South Africa the reason it ended up in South Africa was because this was three foot six and that's the gauge that the South African majority of the railways in South Africa are three foot six there's a few two foot gauge line it's out in South Africa as you may know some of the two foot gauge locos have come over to work on the Welsh Highland Railway and one or two others so but this is the other way around locomotive went from here to South Africa and it worked at the Victoria Falls power station taking coal I believe to the power station the locomotive did then get preserved in a museum but unfortunately in South Africa they've got a terrible problem with people stealing bits metal thieves stealing bits off locos there is talk of bringing it back here if they could bring that loco back to Jersey whether it ever running I don't know if it probably end up in the pallet steam and general museum but it would be great to bring it back to Jersey they might even be able to you know park it in the car park for a day back there so it could actually return to its original haunts that would be a really nice thing for the time being though I'm just going to keep climbing on this very pleasant old railway one thing we've not done yet it's gone over a bridge we've been under a bridge we've seen a tunnel because the railway was originally down at sea level so there wasn't much need for bridges but now if you have a look there it's a little lane down here in fact let's see as these steps let's go down the steps off the railway track bit for a moment and have a look at the first bridge we're going to run down I think we did go under a culvert there we go whether that's the original but you can see clearly a rail bridge we're going to pass over that in a moment interestingly there's a wooden structure there to stop any bridge bashes unfortunately in the UK you hear a lot of problems of railways being closed due to bridge bashes um whether bridge bashes occur on the channel islands I'm not entirely sure but it can't actually delay any trains because there aren't any so let's go over this well it's actually having some work though maybe there has been a bridge perhaps I hope not but anyway so this is it's not the most exciting bridge I know and it's the first bridge we've passed over I think we might have passed over a culvert further back because I noticed a stream that appeared from outside or underneath the track a lot of whole oak trees growing here or evergreen oaks as they're sometimes known we're always taking quite a sharp curve that way now so I'll keep walking see what else I can find I'm continuing to enjoy this walk still climbing up to where the summit's going to be just beyond the former Donbridge station now I mentioned that the line closed down in 1936 that was the end for passenger operations you may know that Jersey was taken over by Hitler's forces during the war and they started to reopen the line in fact they reopened most of it and they but they built it to meter gauge we don't really use meter gauge in the UK because time when most steam railways were around metric wasn't really a thing but in Germany and France and European countries meter gauge is very common places like the hearts are all meter gauge but here on Jersey we had this line rebuilt to meter gauge but what actually happened was it wasn't for passengers it was purely an industrial military railway so they they reopened this line they built a branch to a quarry on the north of the island I'm not going to try and explore that branch today but you never know maybe one day we might do that we get to here now and there's a former level crossing in a funny way cars don't have to stop for trains but cars have to still stop here because there's a low there's nothing coming across anyway so yeah cars effectively what would be really cool is they had gates that went down just like in the time on the fashion as if it was still a railway yeah I'm going to continue now um it looks like well this is quarry I'm probably if I'm not spelled pronouncing that correctly but two and a half miles on that's the end of the line so I've got another two and a half miles of walking this railway and what is a rather hot day but I'm enjoying it it's the British summer so I'm going to continue walking now I'm now walking through what I'm thinking you pronounce the port my quest country park apologies if that isn't how you pronounce it and indeed where we were back at that crossing I think there may have been a little halt there or there was a station called port my quit and there was no trace of it but looking at um you know where it would have been I've got um a few maps and that in my rucksack and every time I sit down at a bench I have a quick look I reckon that was back there we're continuing now up towards Donbridge station well we've now reached a level section of line the reason it's level is because this is the site of Donbridge station I'm not entirely sure why it was called Donbridge because it's in the area of Jersey called St Brailards but it's called Donbridge so you can just see the line looking that way it was a level crossing there and it went down the hill there was a cafe called off the rails quite an appropriate name had an ice cream there we continue through here and I've noticed there's a road bridge up ahead and then the gradient continues to climb so we're not we haven't reached the summit yet I think they just built this bit on a whether it's a hundred percent level I don't think it quite is but on a slightly less severe gradient I suppose to stop any chance of trains running away in the station because obviously you don't want that so we go under this bridge so it's no mistake and this is an old railway bridge so I must be coming to the end of the station platform so I expect well in fact I know that there have been two platforms so trains could have passed each other it would have been mainly single track but this section would have been double track so I'm going to go under the bridge now and continue on up towards the summit in the end of the line so we're now on a not quite so exciting bit of trunk bed just just less than a quarter of a mile beyond Donbridge station but we've reached the summit about here I can see the line levels out slightly and then I think in a distance it will start to drop so about 200 feet above sea level so from St. Oban obviously that was sea level we've climbed 200 feet didn't feel it it did it did seem for a human walking it wasn't much it wasn't like walking up a steep hill that you could see for a railway the little steam locals would have been working pretty hard it would be great like this there is talk of them reviving it although nothing's come of that for a while and there's talk of relaying some bits of two foot gauge line which I think would be quite good you could probably keep it open as a cycle path stroke foot path as well and you could see a steam locomotive climbing those gradients once again and it'd be a great tourist attraction for the island I said how one of the locomotives does survive quite a few of them I should have said they went on to have careers beyond their life on Jersey but they have since been scrapped some of them went to the western cleaves and porters headlight railway over in Somerset so some locals weren't there but unfortunately they were all scrapped eventually as well so the line is now going to begin going down so let's keep going to the end the old railway's taken on yet another different feel it's turned into this pine avenue and of course to this side and beyond there is the sea we're effectively heading out onto a peninsula on the island which is interesting you know they built the line to well pretty much nowhere it's not like it kind of links a town together the Jersey eastern railway which went from as I was saying earlier went from Snow Hill to Gory that that kind of links two places together but now we're sort of really gone out into the countryside and we're just going to continue till we basically run out of land so keep going down and we'll soon come to the sea we're now descending a similar steep gradient to what we came up now I'm not 100% sure if this is what it is but I've noticed there's a bit of a hump here whether this is potentially only remains of the old railway station at St Moyle it may well be may not be but it just looks a bit um like it potentially could be and looking at where the village is in relation to where the railway is it just seems to tick all the boxes but it may not be and we are on quite a downhill gradient so I'm not entirely sure on that one there's no station roads which is the obvious clue when you're looking at old railway lines in Britain all right we're going to continue across the road and down to the end of the line regarding the old St Moyle station we've just literally come across the road on a second thought this section of track is flat so I was thinking it might have been there because of the slight embankment I wondered if it was like earth where they had built a platform wall the platform wall disappeared and it was the earth that filled it in that was still there but here is flat there isn't and whether the camera's picking it up would just be on these trees the line begins to descend so I reckon he here or just over the other side road anyway one of these sides is where I think some more station must have been I've now got just under a mile now down to the end of the line so I'm going to continue which I soon find well there's actually a junction coming up first and then we'll find the end of the line it's very quiet now this part of the old railway we seem to have been walking down a pine lined avenue for the last well at least two miles now here we get to the junction the line straight on went to Lemoyer quarry but that was fairly short lived it closed as early as 1899 here the line going that way that's the line to La Corbière or the station was simply called Corbière but La Corbière is the southwestern point of Jersey that's where the railway went to I said it kind of went to nowhere I suppose it could have taken tourists to that southwestern point so we're not going to do that line today we're going to go down there and follow the line on to La Corbière as we approach the end of the line the railway suddenly becomes very scenic you can see out I'm not sure if those islands over there is possibly Guernsey when I came on the ferry yesterday from pool I got quite a good view of Guernsey I could also see France I got quite a good view of Flamenville nuclear power station in France let's just stop here and have a look at this view it's a bit too good not to so I that's possibly it's got to be some of the other channel islands over there so we haven't got further to go now we really are the main bulk of Jersey is is there it's very hot on this peninsula but I think we're very close in fact we are not very close to the end we've come to the end look at this hadn't realized we were quite there I can see what looks to me very much like an old station platform something we haven't actually seen yet intact been hoping to find a intact station platform ever since I started this video from here we are that to me looks like an old station platform and we've made it to Corbière or La Corbière where it says on the on this poster it says Corbière so this is the old railway station it's a listed building but it has also had permission from to build a modern extension which you can see there there's also this prehistoric rock here which is interesting it's called lettable de mafas so it's a granite slab which is possibly like an old cabinet of someone's buried there maybe I don't know I did I was looking at doing this as a railway video but interesting so I suppose that was there the whole time the trains were running it's got to be one of the hottest most sun trapped disused railway stations I have ever been to it's I mean it's about 28 on Jersey today it feels like about 30 here it really is very hot I want to walk down there to the end of the line let's just go over here to have a look at the front of the station this is also where the bus stop is I think so yeah look at that remote little bus stop in front of the old railway station there's also a hotel there's a tower built by the Germans it's a bit yeah empty here but just hot and got confused let's just go through the very end of the line and then I'm going to have to get a bus back I may have a while to wait I think they're fairly regular down here shouldn't have to wait more than half an hour we're going to get drink anywhere look at that that's the station building in the den if it's modern extension I'm not sure I'm overly keen on that but anyway this station survives we get to here so they have built this wall the upper wall is obviously modern I suppose that's to give the people who live there a bit of a garden we get to here we can just see the slope of the end of the platform and then what happens to the part it comes to a bit of a sort of end a sign saying don't go down there so there's a bit of a come out here as a toilet block there that's handy to know so if you're walking this side right so well I think that brings me to well look at that that's a down to the lighthouse let's go down there let's have a look I think we should end the video with a real view so I hope you've enjoyed this video exploring the old jersey railway um I've enjoyed walking it it has been a bit it's not feeling like it's hot now as it did up there it's a bit cooler down here so here we at ends with a view that car let that car let me go it's kind of well look at that bruce list tower I'm off to the tower that the Germans built and here we are we have literally come to the end of jersey here the lighthouse I think it's like a causeway if we drive across that that one the tides out so from lakobje the end of jersey just slightly down the hill from the railway station thank you very much for watching please do feel free to like subscribe and comment and what of you to say goodbye